


Admissions

by TheIndifferentDroid



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College AU, First he's sour then he's sweet, Hux is uptight, Kylo is a sour patch kid, Kylux - Freeform, Kylux Summer Fest 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIndifferentDroid/pseuds/TheIndifferentDroid
Summary: The last thing Hux needs is a distraction on the first day of his last semester in college. Especially when that distraction looks like Kylo.





	Admissions

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the KyluxXOXO Summer Fest week 5 prompts: artist, game, fake.

Hux hates undergrads. Granted he himself is an undergrad, but being in his fifth and final year of his engineering degree, he feels he has the seniority to at least complain about lowerclassmen. 

 

That being said, his current situation is rather unfortunate. The classes required to fulfill the remainder of his degree had only totaled nine hours. (This, at least, had gone to plan.) However, in order to maintain a full-time status, he was required to take twelve hours. The decision for the extra class had not been made easily, and now, sitting in said class, he still wasn’t convinced he had made the right choice.

 

ART 2042: Classical Art History. A two thousand-level class. Not too easy and challenging enough to keep him entertained, but certainly nothing so difficult as to derail his current grade point average. The three-hour Monday night class certainly isn’t ideal, but it opens up the rest of his week quite nicely. As long as he can get through the semester without killing the undergrads, or perhaps cursing them out, then he’d be fine. 

 

Surveying his classmates for the first time, Hux thinks this might become an issue.

 

On one side of the room, there’s a small group of girls in t-shirts too big to determine if they’re wearing shorts underneath. Behind them, a sole boy in a baseball cap with the university’s logo, a shirt with the university’s logo, which also matches his shorts and backpack, who vaguely appears as if he’s been sponsored by a sporting brand. A student athlete, then. A spattering of students to Hux’s right contain a handful of kids that are so prepared for class–binders and highlighters and a pile of textbooks–that Hux questions whether this is actually the Spring semester. He feels like he’s back in high school. Hell, he may as well be. He’s surrounded by children. 

 

The professor starts promptly at six o’clock, handing out the syllabus and droning on about a vague description of the class. She takes attendance, and a few students are missing, but it doesn’t seem unusual for a night class. They’ve probably decided to drop the course already.

 

A few minutes later, they’re discussing class expectations when it happens.

 

"I don’t tolerate tardiness. We have a lot to cover in a limited time. If you’re late–"

 

Professor Holdo’s apt speech is cut short by the door swinging open wildly.

 

Hux cackles at the timely entrance. He can’t help it, and he can’t find it in him to care that everyone is looking at him now instead of the beast of a man that just walked through the door five minutes late. 

 

The man pauses in the doorway, readjusts the one strap of his backpack that had fallen off of his shoulder in his haste to open the door. He’s large and imposing and anything but subtle. Ignoring the professor, he looks up at the class as if they’ll somehow help him out of the awkward situation. He scans the entire classroom. Then his eyes land on Hux. 

 

"I was just discussing my tardiness policy with the class, if you’d like to have a seat," Professor Holdo says. The man’s eyes don’t leave Hux’s. "The topic might interest you."

 

Hux is finally able to take a breath when the man looks away to close the door quietly behind him. He must be another senior like Hux just trying to get an easy A, because there’s no way this person is fresh out of high school. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, because he’s quite the sight. His shoulders are broad, the leather of his jacket stretched tightly over them. His black hair just reaches his back and it’s ruffled a little from the hood that’s bunched up at the base of his neck. 

 

When the man turns back around, Hux becomes suddenly interested in the syllabus on his desk, but out of the corner of his eye he can see the large figure moving towards the rows of desks. The dark outline moves shadow-like in his periphery, getting closer, much closer than Hux would prefer. The man brushes past Hux’s right, his backpack just barely clipping his shoulder, and takes a seat in a desk in the adjacent row. The cold air from outside seems to cling to the man, causing Hux to get a rush of goose bumps as the temperature seems to drop around him. He refuses to breath. 

 

They review the rest of the syllabus without further interruption, but Hux can’t help but notice the darkness looming just over his shoulder to his right. The man is fidgeting, can’t quite seem to get situated in the tiny desk. With a frustrated grunt, he drops his backpack to the ground and kicks his feet out into the aisle. Hux can see the boots, crossed at the ankles, as they land next to his seat. He takes a quick, casual look at them to see that they’re splattered in about ten different colors of paint. His black jeans appear to be covered as well, but the fabric is a little more forgiving. Hux stops his eyes from roaming when they begin to pass the man’s knees. 

 

For perhaps the first time in his entire college career, Hux ignores the rest of the syllabus review.

 

"Mister..."  


Hux startles, refocusing his vision on the professor, who is blessedly not looking at him.

 

"Dameron," the boy - the athlete - answers.

 

"Mr. Dameron, we’ll start with you. We’re going to do an icebreaker. I don’t have a huge lecture planned for today," Professor Holdo begins, shaking her watch down her arm to glance at it. "And we have some time."

 

Hux rolls his eyes. He doesn’t care if the professor sees him. He doesn’t need her to like him; he just needs the A.

 

"We’ll play two truths and a lie. Start with your name, then give us three statements about yourself: two true, one false. And we have to guess which is the lie."

 

Hux outright sighs this time. It earns him a glare from the professor and the three students in his immediate vicinity who would clearly rather play a game than learn anything on the first day. 

 

The game is fairly uneventful. Hux only pays attention enough to catch everyone’s names, loses interest when people start using the truths to brag about things, like their famous great grandparents or their academic achievements. 

 

Hux gets through his turn with his standard first day information that he’s stuck to since freshman year. He’s an engineering major. (True. This lets people know he’s not really interested in whichever liberal arts class he’s currently in.) He’s from England. (True. This stops nosy students from asking him where he’s from halfway through the semester.) He’s named after his father. (False. Though he sprinkles that in as an "interesting fact" when he needs one; no one ever questions why there’s no suffix at the end of his name.)

 

"Okay. I’m Kylo," a deep voice says from behind Hux. It’s the man who was late. Hux ignores how he’s suddenly paying attention and sitting up straighter. "Alright. Three things... My mother is a senator. I’m classically trained in piano." He pauses. "And I don’t like redheads."

 

While that elicits a fairly humorous response from the rest of the class, Hux is dumbstruck. He keeps his eyes trained to the front of the classroom. It’s obvious and cruel and Hux absolutely refuses to give this Kylo character the satisfaction of a reaction. He hasn’t participated thus far anyway; there’s no reason to start now. 

 

But once the giggles cease and the room quiets, no one ventures to guess. 

 

Something about wanting to prove this man wrong boils so hot in Hux’s blood that the words come involuntarily. "I certainly doubt you play the piano," he says, still facing the front of the classroom. The words are out of Hux’s mouth before he even makes the conscious effort to say them.

 

Hux’s response surprises the students, too, as if they also recognize how bold it is of him to participate in this round, the presumed subject of one of the truths offered for consideration. 

 

It’s too quiet. Hux’s statement hasn’t been confirmed or denied, and he refuses to turn around to get the answer. It feels as if everyone in the classroom is looking at him, though, but they’re just looking at Kylo just beyond him. 

 

With a perhaps over dramatic huff, Hux minutely adjusts in his seat to turn and look at Kylo. There’s a devilish smirk on his face; Hux has walked right into his trap.

 

"I most certainly do play piano." Kylo splays out his hands in front of him, wiggles his fingers a little. Dried smudges of paint litter the fair skin on his palms. "What else do you think hands this big are good for?"

 

Hux doesn’t humor him, but the rest of the class does. He mumbles a curse under his breath, unheard in the fits of laughter, and faces the front of the classroom again. Now he’s determined, though worried may be the better way to describe rush Hux is feeling right now. 

 

"Hey, you’re Senator Organa’s son, aren’t you?" an overexcited kid calls from the other side of the room. 

 

"Nailed it," the man called Kylo announces. 

 

Hux blanches, and hopes everyone is preoccupied with the realization that there is a local celebrity in the class and hasn’t made the deduction Hux has come to. If he does play piano and actually is the senator’s son, then that would mean–

 

"I like gingers," Kylo announces casually, like he’s telling someone the time. "So that was the lie."

 

Hux doesn’t know what happens for the rest of the class, so he’s thankful when the professor ends thirty minutes early. All he has to show for it are some notes with a messy excuse for handwriting and words that trail off at the ends into scribbled nonsense. 

 

The boy–the man, the one that was late, the one with the too-large frame and the splattered paint–jumps out of his seat at the dismissal like the building was on fire, his backpack swinging untamed behind him and catching Hux on the shoulder, again. 

 

Hux doesn’t rush. He’s preoccupied. He also wants to give that Kylo person time to exit the building. He shudders to think what an encounter with him would be like outside the control confines of a classroom if their little game was any indication of the man’s true behavior.

 

Dropping the class crosses Hux’s mind; he doesn’t need to take this elective specifically. There’s plenty more. And it’s only Monday. He could transfer to another class overnight and show up to class on Tuesday like he’s always been part of the roster, and no one would be the wiser. He certainly can’t expect the piano-playing, senator’s son to drop the class, as it blatantly appears to be part of his required curriculum if the mess he’s made of himself and his clothes are any indication. 

 

By the time Hux has collected his things–and himself–the classroom is completely empty. He stays seated for a moment. The echoing silence of an empty university hall after dark has a certain reverence to it. He lets it soak in before he realizes it’s also mildly intimidating. 

 

Hux slips on his coat and scarf, grabs his things, and quickly steps out into the hall. He ignores the shadowy figure he catches in his periphery as he hangs a hard left away from it and towards the exit. He grips his keys tightly, walks with a purpose, as they say.

 

"Hey! Red!"

 

Hux keeps walking even though he knows he’s being called, even though he knows it’s the tall man with the dark hair and the long legs that’s trying to get his attention with that deep voice rumbling through the empty hall. 

 

"Red!"

 

Hux halts to a stop and turns around so fast his messenger bag swings wildly at his side and slides off his shoulder.

 

"That is  _not_  my name, nor is it clever. I suggest you stop calling me that if–"

 

"I’m sorry," Kylo interrupts. As far as Hux can tell, it sounds sincere enough. Kylo is a few paces away, has stopped dead in his tracks from the confrontation, one leg extended awkwardly mid-step. "Tell me your name, then?"

 

Hux is still seething but he’s quiet. He won’t give him the satisfaction of another fiery reaction. The redness in his face is embarrassing enough as it is. 

 

"Armitage."

 

Hux can tell the man wants to laugh by the way his lips–not that he was looking at his lips–twitch slightly at the corners, but he schools his features appropriately. "Kylo," he says. 

 

"Yes, I know,” Hux replies without missing a beat. “I was paying attention in class." _Before you distracted me_ , he wants to add.

 

Kylo looks down at his feet, almost shameful. His shoulders curl in a little, like he’s trying to make himself smaller, perhaps less intimidating. Hux must admit it’s working. He takes a few steps towards Kylo against his better judgment, closing the gap enough so they can speak more quietly. 

 

"You called after me," Hux says in an attempt to reign in the conversation. "I assume you need something?"

 

Kylo’s jaw works a little around the words he won’t vocalize. He still won’t look up. 

 

"Come on, now. It’s late. Get on with it."

 

"I wanted to buy you a coffee," Kylo blurts a little louder than necessary so his voice reverberates gently through the empty hall. He lowers his voice next, still nearly talking into his chest. "I know I was rude. In class. I want to make it up to you."

 

It’s not as eerie as Hux imagines it should be, being alone in a dark hallway with a stranger. Especially when Kylo finally lifts his head and makes eye contact. His eyes are dark in the dimly lit hallway but somehow still glow with whatever light there is. Hux suddenly wants to see him outside, either now under the bright glow of the winter moon or illuminated by the sun in the daytime. His eyes are expressive, pleading in a way Hux has never experienced. There is paint, unsurprisingly, on Kylo’s face too, so subtle that Hux only sees it after he notices the dark moles, splattered ever so slightly in beautiful contrast. 

 

Funny, Hux thinks, how the beast has been tamed, how his fake bravado was left discarded in the classroom. 

 

Impossibly, Hux finds it both endearing and incredibly frustrating.

 

"What year are you in?" Hux asks. 

 

Kylo’s eyes open fully now, and he straightens his posture. "What?"

 

"Just answer the question."

 

"I’m a junior. Why–”

 

"Tea," Hux replies coolly. "I like tea. Next Monday." He turns to leave without another glance at Kylo, sure he’s memorized the markings on his face by now, both natural and man-made. 

 

He calls one last time over his shoulder before he turns the corner. He can see out of the corner of his eye that Kylo hasn’t moved an inch. "And don’t be late."

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr @ [huxandthehound!](https://huxandthehound.tumblr.com/)


End file.
